The Player (6 page)

9

Kyle was in no mood for bullshit at practice, but it seemed like the whole team was amped up. Sure, they still were letting games get away from them, but with a number of other teams losing they still had a chance. But
turnovers were killing them, both forced and unforced. Receivers were dropping easy balls, there were a number of pass deflections, the defense jumping offside, fumbles at the line of scrimmage and penalty calls of holding their opponents receivers. They were a better team than their 4 and 3 record indicated. The Renegades had too much depth on offense to simple walk away with a field goal once they got close to their opponents end zone.

The local papers and internet reporters were piling on the criticism, but they’d vowed not to let the media get them down. When they lost, stepping up to the mike to explain what happened was the best thing to do. It’s what a man would do. But all that anger had to go somewhere, so Kyle wasn’t surprised to see Darren mixing it up with a rookie on defense during a line of scrimmage drill.

“Know your position muthafucka!”
Darren bellowed, his helmet off and sweat filled braids sticking to his face. “That’s all you’ve got to do! You’ve got all that swagger and mouth, but you’re not producing on the field.”

The rookie made the mistake of answering Darren back, only to get his helmet damn near jammed into his jaw. Darren grabbed the kid’s face guard and flung the first year player to the ground. “
Look at you now. Don’t feel so good does it?
I thought so. See how you like it when somebody grabs your helmet and twists your head like it screws off. Get the fundamentals first, boy. You can’t make up for it by doing dirty hits.”

Both Kyle and the defensive coordinator did their best to separate the offensive from the defense. No sooner had they separated Darren and the rookie when another fight started between Virgil and a second year man.

“WTF is going on?!” Kyle yelled over the threats of violence as defensive players sided with their own and the offensive did the same. “If we’re fighting each other then we’ll never win on the field. Save your aggression for the real thing on Sunday!”

“The defense been holding it down, baby. Each and every game,” JJ Stoles spouted, mad at what he perceived as a dig on the defense from his quarterback.

“Wait, what did you just say to me?”
Kyle asked, his blue eyes brimming with anger. “After giving up over three hundred yards in the last game and allowing the Cardinals in the end zone four times?”

JJ refused to back down. “The offense runs three downs and you’re out, and that was just about every quarter. It wasn’t until the last minutes of the game that y’all scored a couple of touch downs.”

“So what you sayin’?” Darren was right at Kyle’s side. “We need to stop trying to win ‘cause the game’s almost over? Shit, we play four quarters,
not three and a half.”

“Yeah, but the offensive wasn’t putting enough points on the board,” JJ grumbled, looking directly at Kyle. “So something’s not clicking.”

Kyle didn’t need to hear the actual words spoken. They’d lost confidence in him. Their franchise player. Their team leader.

*****

He’d never been so glad to hit the shower after a hard practice. And he wasn’t holding any grudges about what JJ Stoles had implied. The team just wasn’t producing, even though their pre-season wins had made some sports insiders pick them as the one to beat. During the regular season the pressure of unmet expectations was just another thing that had doomed the team. With a state of the art training facility and administrative building, along with the newly renovated locker room, Kyle could see why fans were frothing at the mouth. The Carolina Hurricanes were also based in Raleigh and they’d won two Stanley Cups. Darren tried to cheer him up as they both changed into their street clothes, sitting on the new cherry wood benches, under lockers that bore their names.

“They want us to tank the last few games so that we get a better draft pick,” Darren said. “Who thinks of shit like that? And would you even call them fans?”

“It comes with the territory,” Kyle shrugged.

“Say what? Man, what’s wrong with you?

“Nothing, I just refuse to get worked up about something I can’t control.”

“Well, something’s wrong. I can tell. You don’t say much, but you’ve had a lot more to say about fools wanting us to tank games before.”

Kyle sigh was more of an anguished groan. “It’s Shaun. And  Scott. And even Harlow. But mostly it’s me. I’m crazy about her, Darren. But you know me. Shit, I’m this just white bread kinda guy, and she’s – she’s just beautiful. I can’t compete against her ex. Did you know he’s that rapper, the one called The Great OZ? The guy is a phenomenon. I had no idea that his songs get played so much in our locker room-”

“So? Who’s she with? She’s with you, not him.”

“And she’s got a daughter by him. So they have to talk. A lot. He’ll never be out of the picture.”

Darren sat back, narrowing his eyes. “Do you really want something like that? Because if you do, then what if it was Maddy? Wouldn’t you get involved, or would you just let Erin and hew new man handle it?”

“I-I-”

“I-I- I,” Darren mimicked. “Kyle, get your head out of your ass. You knew she had a kid when you started talking to her, but that didn’t stop you. And you knew she was dealing with an entertainer ex-husband. Just like you knew I thought she was real cute. But since you’re Kyle McClure, you just bogarted your way in.”

“Hey, man. I didn’t know you were interested.”

“Don’t bullshit me.
You knew.”

“Darren, I really didn’t know you were interested in Harlow. It just happened between me and her, you gotta believe me. I just – I’m not just in love with her. I’m crazy in love with her.”

Man to man, Darren weighed not only Kyle’s words, but his demeanor. He hated to admit it, but Kyle was telling the truth. That’s just how he was. Dude didn’t really know anything but being real, even if it made him seem square as hell, so Darren had to ask, “Have you told her in any shape or form how you feel about her ex?”

“Not yet.”

“I guess I’m losing my touch with the ladies if she’d pick you over me, so it’s her loss. I was too slow or something.”
Yeah, he could kick himself for being so slow to talk to Harlow. What was that old saying? If you snooze, you lose? Well, that’s what happened to him.
  “I could tell the two of you really hit it off so I started making myself scarce. But I’m letting you know, if it don’t work out I’m gonna see if I can pick up the pieces. I ain’t scared of her ex. Believe that. I’ll be her shoulder to cry on, and you know I can do it.”

“Yeah, I know. But you’ll be stuck waiting. Because it’s gonna work out.”

10

Moving was murder on her back, especially since Harlow hadn’t been in this brownstone very long. But she’d found a cute three bedroom apartment not too far from Reina’s school, so it was time to go. Though she was pleasantly surprised at Kyle’s offer to help her pack, they wound up flat on their backs instead of filling boxes. Her biggest concern was Reina coming home early and catching their little afternoon lovefest. After a particularly vigorous round of love making Harlow did her best to get rid of the evidence so that her daughter would be none the wiser.

Kyle had to chuckle over her need to appeal chaste for Reina. “What makes you think she doesn’t already know we’re doing it while she’s in school?”

Harlow gave him a simmering glare as she gathered up his clothes and her underwear. “Just wait, your turn is coming with yuh little Maddy. Then we’ll see if yuh still feel like joking about it. I can just imagine how crazy you’ll get when she tells yuh she has a crush on a boy.”

“I have a shotgun, and ammunition. I’ll just scare them off.”

“It’s not that easy. Kids talk to each other in school, and on the internet. I’ve already caught boys leaving love messages to Reina.”

“Can’t blame ‘em. She pretty, just like you.”

“Yuh think?”

“I saw it immediately, after viewing that photo where you were fifteen and you were in that dance contest, your face is her face. I gotta tell you, I really like the other photo of you in that big bird costume, when you were about twenty.”

“I didn’t look like big bird!”

“I know, I know. Big bird is yellow and your costume was green. Plus you looked sexy as hell.” After a minute or two of watching her neatly folding up his clothes, Kyle tilted his head, asking, “
Do you still have your outfit?”

“It’s around here somewhere. I don’t know why I kept it. There was a time I really could’ve used the money if I’d sold it. I guess it brings back memories, because winning that contest was the one of the high points of my life.”

“I wish I could’ve seen you dance live back then.” He was sprawled on her bed with one of his long legs cocked up while the other was diagonal, his heel along the mattress edge. The way his legs were divided gave her a clear view of what lay heavy and thick between his legs.

The way his eyes got that dreamy look in them, like he was imagining a number of things with her in that outfit gave Harlow an idea. “Close your eyes. Don’t open them until I tell you,” she ordered. “You’ve been a very good boy so I think you deserve a reward.”

“I hope it’s what I think it is. But I maybe I’m wrong. Are you gonna do it? Are you gonna-”

“Shhh . . . it’ll be worth the wait.”

All he could hear were footsteps racing from one room to another. The sound of hangers getting rifled and a short curse of frustration at not finding what she wanted made him think that the outfit was already packed away. Finally Harlow came huffing back into her master bedroom, rummaging deep in her closet, going into another room, searching for something in there, then he could hear her in the bathroom struggling with something. After what seemed like an eternity of getting hollered at because he kept trying to peek, she told him to open his eyes.

And what he saw, it was . . . it was beyond words.
She was beyond words.

There were green feathers, diamonds – at least he thought they were diamonds – they could’ve been that other stuff women wear to make outfits like that sparkle. Whatever the hell they were, the little buggers really popped in the just the right places. Her headdress was adorned with feathers and silvery, shiny little beads also.
Fuck. Why couldn’t he recall what those things were?
All he knew was what stood before him, dressed like the women in the comic books he liked to read as a kid, her body curvy and soft and spilling out of a very skimpy superhero outfit like it was painted on.
God, she was beautiful.
So gorgeous, that his dick reacted in a salute. 

“Would you like to see how I danced?” Her voice was practically a purr.

He licked his lips in anticipation. “Oh yes, I’d like that very much.”

Gyrating her hips to a beat only she could hear, Harlow started out slow and sensuous, like she was fucking the very air he breathed. With her behind undulating and her middle rolling, he couldn’t take his eyes off her. She had him hypnotized, that’s how charismatic her performance was.
Rhinestones.
That’s what they were called. He was so caught up that he didn’t even realize he’d been stroking himself each time she’d air hump. Alluringly uninhibited with her movements, as she danced Kyle was a captive audience.

While the effect of jostling feathers stuck to what looked like a rhinestoned thong was the stuff of wet dreams, he was missing most of the action back there. He needed to see her delicious and oh so delectable apple bottom. “Take that off,” he commanded.

His suggestion couldn’t have come at a better time. The bottom of her costume was tight as hell, giving her an unbearable wedgie. The majority of her rhinestones had popped off and were lining the floor, a casualty of a thirty-five year old booty forced into an outfit from her twenties. Once she was free of that bottom part, Kyle’s tongue was practically hanging out of his mouth. Harlow was his very own
Victoria’s Secret model, but the only difference was she could dance. She kept doing this thing where her legs were opening and closing at the same time her butt was rotating in a whole ‘nother rhythm, and she was able to keep going all the way to the floor and back up. There were parts on her body that he didn’t even realize could move. It was belly dancing and Hawaiian hula dancing taken to the sensual extreme. Every part of her twitched and bounced and poked out while she kept a smile on her face like there was nothing to it. Then she dramatically stopped all the action, making him hold his breath in wonderment.

“Can you . . . will you dance like that on top of me?”

“Yuh wat meh boomsie,” she motioned toward her butt. “Or meh nanny?” Using her index finger to swirl over her slit, Harlow gave him a naughty, inviting smile.

The sound he made wasn’t human. Harlow crawled up his legs, removing her top and then her headdress. This was simply exquisite torture, the way the skin on her mound brushed against his as she undulated, her opening slick and wet but out of reach as she teased him with her body and her dancing.

Each time he attempted to corral her in his arms she’d slap at his hands. “Want this? Yuh gotta take it.”

Before she knew it, he’d flipped her underneath him. This was how she liked it, with him practically drilling her into the bed, each thrust stronger than the previous one. Whatever thoughts lay behind those eerily smoldering blue eyes as he loomed over her made Harlow shiver.
The upper part of his body was slightly raised like he was doing a push up on the bed, while the bottom half worked at giving her strokes that were slow, sharp and oh so deep. It was one surge after another as he moved inside of her.

“Let me know if I’m being too rough.” He gritted out the words, sweat beads lining a face twisted with ecstasy. Kyle wasn’t the type of guy who did a lot of talking in the bedroom. He didn’t talk dirty, and he didn’t whisper a bunch of sweet nothings in her ear. He just went at it good and hard.

They slid and slapped against one another and into each other, the wet sounds of him entering and withdrawing like music to her ears. This was sex at its rawest, just two people frantic for each other until one or both of them finally came.
Several times the breath caught in her throat, because she was just on the edge of one hell of an orgasm. Somehow she’d known it would be like this, that he’d fit her like a key meant for a lock. But he didn’t just have her body. He had her heart.